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Questions arise about Colorado House testimony on gun bill

Charles Robles wipes away tears as he rereads a note from man who was in his pawnshop when it was robbed 11 years ago. James Delcoure credited Robles with saving his life during an incident in which Robles was seriously injured, caused him to be hospitalized for six months and required five surgeries. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)

A Colorado Springs man went before state lawmakers considering gun legislation with a riveting tale: How he lay wounded behind a pawnshop counter, squeezed off 13 rounds from his pistol to fend off robbers and owed his life to a high-capacity ammunition magazine.

Charles Robles' dramatic testimony Feb. 12 was among the key moments in the House Judiciary Committee debate and helped persuade members to approve an amendment to increase the proposed limit on ammunition magazines from 10 rounds to 15.

But a witness to the shooting, news stories of the 2002 incident, an autopsy and a police report that quoted Robles' own account of the robbery in Tempe, Ariz., tell a different story.

It's one that calls into question the key point he shared with lawmakers: that he needed all 13 rounds to save his life.

In fact, in interviews in the weeks since Robles, 43, spoke to lawmakers, his story has changed several times in significant ways. In particular, he has at times claimed to have killed one of the robbers, then said he simply shot the man and then said it didn't matter whether he hit the man or not. He also neglected to mention the presence of a co-worker who was armed.

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"Robles said that he thought he fired 3-6 rounds total at the (black/male) suspect who had shot him," a police report says. The report said Robles' co-worker was the one who fatally shot a second robber. In an interview with The Denver Post, Robles said he fired the fatal shot.

The Colorado Senate on Friday will consider the gun bill influenced by Robles' testimony and six other bills.

Robles adamantly defends his version of events. He said that when he told police he fired a maximum of six shots he was mistaken. He said he spoke just moments before he went into surgery for life-threatening wounds, believed he was dying and was under extreme duress.

He said he later testified at three trials that he fired 13 shots that day and that a bullet from his 9mm Beretta handgun — which had a magazine holding 15 rounds — struck one robber in the chest.

Robles says the shooting left him with bullet fragments in his scarred body and metal screws in his left leg.

On the afternoon of May 26, 2002, Robles was working behind the counter of the Tempe Loan Co. pawnshop. Frederick King, 18; Shane Marcus Turnbo, 19; and Andre McDaniel, 18; came in to pawn a gold watch and a camera.

Although Robles implied to lawmakers that he was alone in the shop at the time of the robbery, a second shop employee, James Delcoure, was on the customer side of the counter when King went around the end of the counter, according to a Tempe police report.

"He opened fire on me," Robles said of King. Robles was struck by five bullets in both legs.

Robles fell to the floor and, while lying on his left side, pulled his Beretta out of a holster and fired several shots at King. King was wounded in the right shoulder, near the right armpit, in the left biceps and in the back of the head, according to the police report. He survived.

Robles said McDaniel, who was on the other side of the counter, began firing at him, and Robles said he reached over the counter and fired his gun at McDaniel at point-blank range.

"I shot him in the chest," he told The Post. "I wouldn't be here talking to you. I would be dead if there was a 10-round magazine ban. I would have ran out of rounds. I would have been at his (McDaniel's) mercy. He would have walked right up to me and shot me."

In his initial description of the gun battle to lawmakers and The Post, Robles didn't mention Delcoure. When a reporter told him he was going to read Arizona Republic articles about the shooting, Robles said the newspaper inaccurately reported that another employee had fatally shot McDaniel. Robles repeated that he was the one who shot McDaniel, something he said he wasn't proud of.

A Republic article about King's court case quoted John Boyle, a former deputy Maricopa County prosecutor, as saying that Delcoure fatally shot McDaniel as he was running out of the shop. Boyle was also quoted as saying that McDaniel was armed but didn't fire his gun.

"It was intense"

In a phone interview, Delcoure said when King's shots rang out, he pulled out a Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .357-caliber revolver, yelled, "Drop the gun!" and immediately started firing just as Robles fired back at King.

Delcoure said one robber shot at him at point-blank range "gangster style" and missed.

"I don't know how they missed me," Delcoure said. "It was intense."

Delcoure said he shot McDaniel as the robbers ran for the door, and McDaniel fell just outside the front door.

"He (McDaniel) hadn't been shot before I shot him," Delcoure said. "He died of a single gunshot. (Robles) didn't shoot anybody else but the guy who shot him."

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